16-03-04 Bolivia's government blocked Brazilian oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro's planned secondary natural gas pipeline that was supposed to provide a plant under construction in Corumba, Brazil, with subsidized Bolivian natural gas. Petrobras' transportation unit hasn't fulfilled legal requirements to transport the gas to Brazil, said Mining and Hydrocarbons Minister Antonio Aranibar.
"We were close to having our national interest mocked," he added. The government will now introduce legislation in the Bolivian congress to " prohibit the direct export of hydrocarbons through lateral or branch lines," he also said.

The decision blocks an $ 80 mm, 33 km pipeline that was supposed to feed the Corumba plant part of a 2000 project to build thermoelectric plants in Puerto Suarez, Bolivia, and Corumba across the border. Currently, Petrobras controls a 3,150 km Bolivia-Brazil pipeline inaugurated in 1998.
Bolivia's plans to export millions of cm of its vast reserves to the US and Mexico collapsed late last year.

The country is South America's poorest country and the administration is trying to reduce its fiscal budget that last year ran to some 8 % of the country's gross domestic product.
A pipeline to export gas to Argentina is currently being planned.